Lent is my favorite time of the liturgical year! Perhaps it is because of my attraction to contemplative monastic life, and St. Benedict ‘s claim that “the life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent” (RB 49:1). But it also feels to me like a time where we are in tune with not only the liturgical calendar but also the rhythm of the earth. For both Lent and this late season of winter are a time of anticipation – just a few more cold, gray days until the tulips start bursting forth; just a few more days of fasting and waiting until Christ is risen…
Many of us instinctively think about something to give up during Lent, often without questioning why. The readings for this week, offered right at the very beginning of Lent, suggest one reason for taking up a spiritual discipline during Lent. In Deuteronomy we hear of God’s promise to Noah after the Flood that he will never again destroy the earth and its people, and he sends the rainbow as a reminder of this promise. The author of the first letter to Peter connects the waters of the Flood with the waters of baptism. Then, with Mark’s typical terseness he tells us that Jesus was tempted in the desert for forty days, and then walks into Galilee proclaiming: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Each of these stories demonstrates a period of renunciation or purification followed by a proclamation of hope.
The first letter to Peter puts it beautifully when the author writes:
It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…
In a recent article in America magazine, Richard G. Malloy claims that one of the main things keeping young people from the Church today is not necessarily disbelief, but rather a pervasive sense of unworthiness before God. A certain perspective on fasting and penance serves to underscore this sense of unworthiness. But I think that this is a false understanding of why Christians willingly take up ascetical disciplines. We do not deny ourselves certain bodily comforts because they are bad, but rather we do so precisely because they are good. We want to develop the capacity to use the good things of God’s creation (including our bodies) to glorify God. The goal is not “a removal of dirt from the body” – or worse, an attempt to remove ourselves from and to denounce the body and its desires as dirty or sinful – but rather, to gain a clear conscience. That is, the goal of these practices is to move the Christian toward what John Cassian calls “purity of heart” (puritas cordis), and what Benedict calls “intention of heart” (intentio cordis: RB 52:4). The Cistercian Michael Casey writes that the purpose of purity and intention is “the aiming the heart at the target.” A “clear conscience” sees – that is, contemplates – the beauty of life in Christ, desires it ardently, and directs the heart (a metaphor for all the interior faculties of the person) to seek that life.
Whatever fasting, penance, or spiritual discipline you may be taking up this Lent, may it serve to foster greater purity and intention of heart, with the ultimate goal of seeing Christ’s resurrected body all the more clearly at Easter.
